3. Title Principles and practices to integrate livestock into rainwater management: an example from mixed crop livestock systems in the Blue Nile Basin (Ethiopia)
4. Key message/highlights Integrating livestock into rainwater management is a means to increase agricultural water productivity by synergizing practices targeting the different components of agricultural systems. For such integration to be more appealing, it needs to be built on two principles: improving water productivity of feed and enhancing efficient uses of the water productive feed.
Short abstract: In response to the increasingly scarce fresh water resources, advocacy for improved agricultural water management has been revived recently in international water debates. Its relevance has also remarkably been extended from irrigation to rain-fed crop-livestock mixed farming systems. It is postulated that improving rainwater management and thereby its water productivity (WP) will help farm communities to prepare for and recover from the impacts of scarce water availability. But scientific knowledge and perception, on how system components (e.g. crop and livestock) in mixed crop-livestock systems can be integrated to enhance WP has a long way to go. Using evidence from mixed crop livestock systems in the Blue Nile Basin, we argue that practices for integrating livestock into rainwater management and thereby improving agricultural WP need to be built on two key principles: i) improving water productivity of feed and ii) enhancing efficiency with which the water productive feed is used. By using selected Livestock Water Productivity (LWP) indicators we diagnosed current LWP in the study systems, established lists of potential rainwater management practices pertinent to these principles. Currently there are number of useful example of practices in some of the study systems which can be out-scaled to other systems and to different farmscapes within a system. But these practices need to be contextualized and supported by research findings in terms of their impacts and tradeoffs.
Fig1. Framework for integrating livestock into rain water management: here practices are defined as a way of doing something and intervention is anything done to achieve a practice change
Preliminary highlights for the Forum capitalizing sessions
Improved livestock management, feed supply and feed sourcing practices positively impact system water productivity in multiple ways: they improve the water productivity of feed, and enhance efficient use of water productive feed. Therefore in efforts toward securing sustainable ecosystem services provision, integration of livestock into rainwater management should be given due emphasis.
2-Pager Abstract Template for NBDC Contributions to South Africa Forum
1. Authors
Authors names: Amare Haileslassie, Alan Duncan, Don Peden
Project Number: N2 and N4
E-mail address of lead author:a.haileslassie@cgiar.org
2. Forum session
Emerging TWG: Rainwater management
3. Title
Principles and practices to integrate livestock into rainwater management: an example from mixed crop livestock systems in the Blue Nile Basin (Ethiopia)
4. Key message/highlights
Integrating livestock into rainwater management is a means to increase agricultural water productivity by synergizing practices targeting the different components of agricultural systems. For such integration to be more appealing, it needs to be built on two principles: improving water productivity of feed and enhancing efficient uses of the water productive feed.
Short abstract:
In response to the increasingly scarce fresh water resources, advocacy for improved agricultural water management has been revived recently in international water debates. Its relevance has also remarkably been extended from irrigation to rain-fed crop-livestock mixed farming systems. It is postulated that improving rainwater management and thereby its water productivity (WP) will help farm communities to prepare for and recover from the impacts of scarce water availability. But scientific knowledge and perception, on how system components (e.g. crop and livestock) in mixed crop-livestock systems can be integrated to enhance WP has a long way to go. Using evidence from mixed crop livestock systems in the Blue Nile Basin, we argue that practices for integrating livestock into rainwater management and thereby improving agricultural WP need to be built on two key principles: i) improving water productivity of feed and ii) enhancing efficiency with which the water productive feed is used. By using selected Livestock Water Productivity (LWP) indicators we diagnosed current LWP in the study systems, established lists of potential rainwater management practices pertinent to these principles. Currently there are number of useful example of practices in some of the study systems which can be out-scaled to other systems and to different farmscapes within a system. But these practices need to be contextualized and supported by research findings in terms of their impacts and tradeoffs.
Fig1. Framework for integrating livestock into rain water management: here practices are defined as a way of doing something and intervention is anything done to achieve a practice change
Preliminary highlights for the Forum capitalizing sessions